Percival and Gwaine Drabbleification
by EffervescentAardvark
Summary: A series of Gwaine and Percival (some slash, but nothing graphic) drabbles. Mostly written for the Camelot Drabble Livejournal Community, but some written just because...
1. The Boy Who Was Late

**The Boy Who was Late**

It became a family joke. "You'll be late for your own funeral." His mother used to say as she ruffled his hair to let him know everything was alright again after he'd been scolded once more for being late for his chores. It wasn't that young Percival was trying to avoid the tasks his father gave him to help out around their small farm. Percival always did his share of the work. It was just there were so many more exciting things to lure him away. Just another five minutes swimming with the other kids in the water hole on a hot Summer's day, or just a bit longer chasing frogs to put in his older sister's bed…

As he grew older he didn't get any better, but the reasons gradually changed along with Percival's size. Any time he was out in the village running an errand he'd be interrupted. Would he just help carry this sack of grain for old Gertie? Could he help chop these logs because John's hurt his back? Could he just hold the end of the cart up while we change the wheel? Everyone loved Percival as he never said no, and his parents' couldn't find it in their hearts to scold him anymore since he often came home with some extra eggs or a bag of turnips to go in the pot as thanks for his help. Every little bit helped when times were hard.

The years passed and it never changed, Percival couldn't resist stopping if his help was needed. So when he'd travelled two days up the road to Inglewood to deliver the young colt his father had bred to his new owner, Percival was happy to stay an extra night to help the colt settle in and get him used to the unfamiliar plough he was harnessed to. The grateful farmer gave him two extra coppers for his help and Percival set off for home pleased with his work.

He left early that morning, speculating idly on whether there would be blackberry pie when he arrived. It was his favourite and his mother sometimes made it to surprise him if he'd been away for a few days. His pie-filled musings were interrupted by the creak of a cart and jingle of harness from around a bend in the road. Cautiously Percival pulled his horse to the side of the road, taking shelter in a stand of trees and small shrubs, but he stepped forward as the cart came into view, bearing a family and what looked like all of their possessions. Not bandits or robbers then.

Percival gave them a smile and a polite hello as he rode past.

"You're not heading North?" The man at the reins asked in surprise. "You don't want to be heading that way son."

"Well, it's the way I'm going." Percival smiled again, puzzled this time.

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" He asked.

"There's an army, to the North. They're burning everything in their path. Best come with us."

But Percival wasn't listening any longer. He was kicking Ned into the fastest pace the old horse could manage. Ned though was more carthorse than warsteed or palfrey. He did his best, but his crooked canter wasn't fast enough. He never would have been fast enough, because Percival was a day late and his home was gone. Everything was gone.

He knew he was too late even before he saw the village. He could smell the smoke, the burnt flesh.

A man from a neighbouring village found Percival the next day. He and the others who slowly emerged from the surrounding area helped Percival bury the rest of the dead. Percival couldn't dig anymore. He was shaking in exhaustion, his hands raw and bleeding from searching the burnt out houses and digging graves; so many graves.

He had no energy left to protest as the men gently lead him away to their village, to the East, that had escaped unscathed. They knew Percival, he'd helped enough of them in the past. They bandaged his hands, fed him food he didn't taste, put him in a bed when exhaustion finally brought his body to a halt.

When Percival told them what he was going to do, they didn't try to stop him. The village smith gave him an old chain mail shirt with the sleeves torn off and the front cut open so it would fit over Percival's large frame. A sword was found from somewhere, more food was pushed upon him and Percival set out to follow Cenred's army and to make them pay.

He had no future, he no longer had any past. All he had was a job to do and this time, there would be no interruptions, no stopping along the way. Percival wasn't a boy anymore and he was done with being late.

~ fin ~


	2. Wanderlust

It was maybe the one thing in this world that Percival was most scared of; more than bandits, marauding Saxons or magical beasts. It was _that_ look in Gwaine's eyes. A sort of faraway, distant look he got sometimes. When he got that look Gwaine would get quiet, or sometimes short and snappy, both of which were totally unGwaine-like. And then there was the telltale twitchiness, the drumming of his fingers, the tapping of his foot.

Percival recognised all of these signs now and did the only thing he could, the only line of defence he had when faced with Gwaine's free spirit, his hatred of being tied down to one place. Percival persuaded Arthur that there hadn't been a patrol out to the western-most reaches of the kingdom for several months and that he and Gwaine were the perfect knights for the job. To be honest, he was surprised that the King had gone for it. Percival's reasons for volunteering for long patrols with Gwaine had gradually gotten thinner and thinner, but Arthur didn't seem to have noticed. Unless, of course, he had and recognised Gwaine's bouts of restlessness for himself.

Gwaine didn't really relax until they'd left the castle behind them, a small shape in the distance as they rode at a leisurely pace. Percival could sort of understand it. Camelot weighed heavily on him too at times. He found the unfamiliar formalities and politics difficult to deal with. He hated trying to remember which fork to use, and being sneered at because his reading skills were a work in progress. Most of all he hated how people would smile and say one thing only for Gwaine to explain to him later how they'd really meant something totally different. So he could understand Gwaine's sigh of relief as Camelot vanished below the horizon.

What he didn't understand was Gwaine's need, his compulsion to wander, to be on the move, to be somewhere unfamiliar where everyone was a stranger. Percival knew it was fun sometimes to see and do new things (when no one was trying to kill them) but what he enjoyed most of all, after their patrols, was having a home to go to, having _Gwaine_ to go to.

"Is it so terrible?" He asked tentatively that night as they lay on their backs, staring at the stars lighting up the sky. Gwaine's head was pillowed on his shoulder.

"Is what so terrible?" Gwaine raised his head slightly to peer down at Percival. The larger knight continued to study the night sky.

"Staying in one place? In Camelot?"

"Oh." Gwaine said before falling silent, thinking.

Percival decided to plough on while he still had the nerve for it. "Is it the place?" He asked, "or the people?"

"Neither…both." Gwaine frowned, sitting up as he tried to explain something he didn't entirely understand himself. "Its knowing that there's so much out there." He gestured vaguely at the darkness with one hand. "So many things I haven't seen yet, strange places I haven't been. Adventures I haven't had."

"You don't have to stay because of me." Percival's voice was small and miserable all of a sudden as he voiced his deepest fear. "I don't want you to be unhappy because of me."

Gwaine snorted impatiently and Percival could just about make out the expression he wore, the one Gwaine reserved especially for when he thought Percival was being particularly dense. He reached for Percival's hand, raising it to where they could both see it and the ring Percival now wore on his finger.

"I gave you my ring Perce. It's not a loan, it's not a temporary thing. I gave it to you forever, because _we're_ forever – so don't you go saying stupid things like that, because then I have to say sappy things to you and we both know that brings me out in hives." He kissed Percival on the nose before settling back down. "Adventures are boring on your own anyway."

"Maybe we can persuade Arthur to let us have a holiday?" Percival mused, letting his fingers play through Gwaine's hair."

"Maybe we can at that. We can say it's for your education? Widening your horizons, something like that."

"I'd like that. Maybe we could see the sea?"

Gwaine twitched in surprise. "You've never seen the sea?"

"No." Percival blushed, still embarrassed on occasion by the limits of his village upbringing.

"Well, that's decided then." Gwaine grinned into the darkness, already planning. "A trip to the coast. I'm sure I heard a rumour in the Rising Sun last week about… Ah, about a sea monster that's scaring the fishermen down there."

Percival wrapped an arm tightly around Gwaine, feeling a weight lift from him despite the weight of the other knight's head against his shoulder. Gwaine wasn't going anywhere. Gwaine was his.

~ fin ~


	3. Letters to Nothing

**Letters to Nothing **

(Gwaine is trying to figure out how to tell Percival how he feels. It does not go to plan).

(See the end of the work for notes.)

**_Dear _****_Percy_****_Perce_****_ Percival,_**

_**I am writing this because I find I am, despite what everyone mistakenly believes, the worst kind of coward.**_

_**If I were not craven I would be saying this to your face, but I cannot bear the thought of having to look into your eyes **__**if**__** when you tell me no.**_

**_We have been friends for such a short time, yet I feel I have known you forever. We have laughed together and bled together, but slowly I have come to realise that I am greedy. Despite what we have, I find that that I must tell you that I _****_want _****_need more, even though this may destroy the friendship upon which I have come to rely so much. I can only hope that you may feel…._**

"Goddamnit!" Gwaine swore savagely, crushing the piece of paper in his hand. What did he think he was doing? What right did he have to ask this of Percival anyway? Percival was perfect in every way Gwaine was not. He was open, honest, trusting, he listened. Not to mention his body, yes, yes his body was perfect too…And there he went again! Percival deserved so much more than Gwaine could ever offer. He was nothing but a drunken layabout, a braggart and occasional (when required) thief, not to mention serial womaniser..and mananiser who would only end up breaking Percival's perfect heart.

Gwaine snarled at his own stupidity, as if Percival would ever give the likes of him that heart to break…. Angry at the pointlessness of it all, Gwaine hurled the crumpled piece of paper at his door. Except, this piece didn't bounce off the door to join the other abandoned letters littering his floor, no, this one bounced solidly off Percival's nose as its original intended recipient elbowed the door open, and then dropped down to land in one of the boots Percival was carrying.

"Oh!" Percival said in surprise, then as he looked around the room taking in the scattered papers and Gwaine's ink-stained state. "I, er, I didn't mean to interrupt. He plucked the offending piece of paper from Gwaine's boot, before bending to place both of them on the floor, just inside of the room. "I've just been down to the market and the cobbler had your boots ready, so I just…anyway." He tailed off, holding the piece of paper out to Gwaine. "You're busy, so yeah. I'll go."

Gwaine stared at the proffered letter and took a deep breath, and then another. If he was ever going to do this… "Read it." He told Percival.

"No, it's yours." Percival shook his head, still holding the paper out for Gwaine to take.

"No, it's yours." Gwaine said, refusing to take it.

"But you wrote it."

Gwaine resisted the sudden urge to bang his head against his ink-smudged table. "Yes, but I wrote it to _you_."

Percival looked at Gwaine, suddenly pale and nervous looking. "But I'm here now, why don't you just tell me what it says?"

"Because I want _you_ to read it! For God's sake Percy, read the damn letter, please!" Gwaine snarled back in frustration. Why was this thing so bloody hard?

Percival flushed red, then white again and his hands were trembling as he unfurled the letter. His brow scrunched in concentration, his lips moving as he read the words on the page.

Gwaine was nearly exploding in nervous anticipation as Percival's lips moved, silently sounding out the words and what was taking him so damned long? Was he doing it on purpose? He'd never seemed a cruel man before.

"Look. Okay!" Percival burst out into the horribly long and tense silence. The desperation in his voice making Gwaine blink. "I can't read, you've got me alright? I've been trying to learn, but it's hard and…and I'm stupid." The big knight suddenly shrank in on himself. "Lancelot was helping but, he's gone now and I know you have to tell Leon or Arthur. I just thought maybe I could figure it out and…"

And this was not where this was supposed to be going. It took Gwaine several attempts to switch his brain from the anticipated rejection from Percival to realise he'd somehow managed to embarrass his best friend. No, he looked at Percival as the man wrung his hands together, not embarrass, mortify. Percival was mortified, and Gwaine realised, scared too.

"You're not stupid." Was the first thing he managed to get out, and then the rest of the words seemed to come more easily. "I wasn't trying to, I mean, I just wanted you to…but that doesn't matter. I can show you how to read." He stood, closing the gap between them and squeezing Percival's arm in support. "I hadn't even guessed that you couldn't, but it's no big deal. Look. Sit down, sit down." He almost fell over himself as he tried to ease Percival into a chair. "We can start now."

"But your letter?" Percival asked.

Gwaine sighed, the time was gone, if it had actually been the time at all. He could wait, he would have to wait. "You can read it yourself." He smiled, "Once I've finished teaching you how to read my horrible handwriting."

~fin~


End file.
